Crisco isn’t particularly good for you, but it’s not the health villain it once was. The original formula contained partially hydrogenated oils loaded with trans fats, which raised bad cholesterol and lowered good cholesterol. That version was reformulated years ago. Today’s Crisco is made from fully hydrogenated and interesterified soybean and palm oils, which eliminates most trans fats but still delivers a hefty dose of saturated fat. It’s a neutral cooking fat, not a health food.
What’s Actually in a Tablespoon of Crisco
One tablespoon (12 grams) of Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening is almost pure fat: 12 grams total. Of that, 3.5 grams are saturated fat, 6 grams are polyunsaturated fat, and 2.5 grams are monounsaturated fat. There’s zero cholesterol, zero protein, zero carbohydrates, and essentially zero micronutrients. It contains no meaningful vitamins or minerals.
That last point matters more than it might seem. The soybean oil Crisco starts with naturally contains vitamin E, a fat-soluble antioxidant. But the industrial refining process strips most of it away. The deodorization step alone destroys roughly 70 to 80 percent of vitamin E in plant oils, according to research on rapeseed oil refining. By the time the oil has been fully hydrogenated, bleached, and blended into solid shortening, you’re getting calories and fat with virtually nothing else.
The Trans Fat Question
For decades, Crisco was one of the biggest sources of trans fats in the American diet. Partially hydrogenated oils, the process that made liquid vegetable oil solid at room temperature, created artificial trans fats as a byproduct. These fats were genuinely harmful: they raised LDL (bad) cholesterol while simultaneously lowering HDL (good) cholesterol, a combination that increased heart disease risk.
Modern Crisco uses fully hydrogenated oils instead. The key difference is that full hydrogenation converts the oil completely, returning it to zero trans fat. The label reads 0 grams of trans fat, though FDA labeling rules allow products with less than 0.5 grams per serving to round down to zero. So trace amounts could theoretically be present, but not at levels considered meaningful.
Fully hydrogenated fats are often blended with liquid oils through a process called interesterification, which softens the otherwise rock-hard fat into a spreadable texture. A randomized controlled trial of 47 healthy adults found that consuming interesterified fats at 10 percent of total calories for six weeks did not worsen the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol or other markers of heart disease risk. That’s reassuring, though six weeks is a short window.
How Crisco Compares to Butter and Oil
The comparison most people want is Crisco versus butter. Tablespoon for tablespoon, Crisco actually contains more saturated fat: about 3.5 grams versus butter’s 5 grams per tablespoon, though some analyses put shortening closer to 7 grams depending on the product formulation. Butter has 7 grams of total fat per tablespoon compared to Crisco’s 12, simply because butter is about 80 percent fat and 20 percent water and milk solids. So Crisco packs more total fat and more calories per tablespoon. Butter does contain cholesterol (about 30 milligrams per tablespoon), while Crisco has none.
Liquid plant oils come out ahead on the health metrics that matter most. Olive oil and canola oil have around 14 grams of fat per tablespoon, similar to shortening, but the composition is dramatically different. Their fat is predominantly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, the types consistently linked to better cardiovascular outcomes. The American Heart Association’s 2026 dietary guidance recommends using liquid nontropical plant oils like soybean, canola, and olive oil in place of animal fats and tropical oils for heart health. Shortening, as a solid fat made partly from tropical palm oil, falls on the less-favorable side of that recommendation.
The Palm Oil Factor
Modern Crisco contains palm oil alongside soybean oil, and palm oil is high in palmitic acid, a saturated fat. Research comparing soybean oil to palm oil in controlled feeding studies found that both kept cholesterol and triglyceride levels within healthy ranges when total fat intake was held at 30 percent of calories. Blending the two oils together didn’t raise cholesterol beyond what either oil produced on its own. But the palm oil diets did produce higher fecal fat excretion, meaning the body absorbed less of the fat, which may partly explain why palm oil’s saturated fat doesn’t always show up as dramatically elevated blood lipids.
Still, the broader pattern holds: replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats improves cardiovascular markers. Using Crisco occasionally for baking won’t meaningfully harm your health, but using it as your primary cooking fat when olive or canola oil would work means choosing a less beneficial option.
Cooking Performance and Limits
Crisco shortening has a smoke point of roughly 360 to 370°F, which is lower than many liquid cooking oils. Crisco’s vegetable oil (the liquid version) reaches 400 to 450°F, and canola oil sits around 400°F. When any fat is heated past its smoke point, it begins to break down, producing off-flavors and compounds you’d rather not eat. Research shows that heating plant oils above 150°C (about 300°F) accelerates the destruction of protective antioxidants like vitamin E faster than any protective chemistry can compensate. Pan-frying at 220°C (428°F) for just seven minutes was enough to destroy all the vitamin E in olive oil and cut sunflower oil’s vitamin E content in half.
For deep frying or high-heat searing, Crisco shortening isn’t an ideal choice. Its smoke point puts a ceiling on how hot you can go before the fat degrades. For baking, where temperatures inside the dough or batter stay well below the smoke point of the fat, it performs fine and produces the flaky textures it’s known for.
The Bottom Line on Regular Use
Crisco is a functional baking fat, not a health food. It’s free of the trans fats that made its old formula genuinely dangerous, and the interesterified fats in the current version don’t appear to harm cholesterol in the short term. But it’s still a concentrated source of saturated fat with no vitamins, no antioxidants, and no nutritional advantage over liquid plant oils. If you’re using it to make a pie crust a few times a year, the health impact is negligible. If it’s your everyday cooking fat, swapping it for olive oil or canola oil is a straightforward upgrade that aligns with current heart-health guidance.